Modern ‘Science’ Blames Humans

For California Weather…If It’s Bad

In the present era of agenda-driven journalism, major news outlets often attempt to persuade readers that weather events occurring now have never happened before…and they are worsened by human-caused climate change.

Even the editor of the prominent scholarly journal Science has just claimed that the abundance of rainfall in California is now a trend brought on by human-caused climate change. Since when is a 7-month precipitation record a trend?

“Episodes of severe weather in the United States, such as the present abundance of rainfall in California, are brandished as tangible evidence of the future costs of current climate trends.”

Attempting to clarify how humans are simultaneously responsible for too much and too little rainfall, Michael Mann explains why warming causes more intense rainfall and widespread drought at the same time, and how this is ironic but not a contradiction.

“With warming, water is cycling more vigorously through our atmosphere. As it turns out, that implies more frequent, very heavy rainfall events, more intense weather potentially as a result of this amplified hydrological cycle. And ironically – although the atmosphere can hold more water vapor and can therefore produce larger amounts of rainfall in a given event – it turns out that these events become less frequent and the warmer surface also causes more evaporation of water into the atmosphere, drying soil surfaces, drying land surfaces. So in this warmer climate with an amplified hydrological cycle we actually see increased rainfall, intense rainfall flooding. But we can also see more widespread drought over continental regions. It might seem like a contradiction, but in fact both predictions follow from the intensification of the hydrological cycle.”

Long-Term Context Matters

It wasn’t all that long ago that journalists actually reported on climate change and weather events while considering a long-term context of natural variability rather than characterizing year-to-year weather change as unprecedented, the worst on record, and caused by humans.

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For example, in 1992 the New York Times actually published an article indicating Medieval-era droughts were much more severe than now, lasting hundreds of years. The modern period has been “relatively wet” compared to the past in that region.

“BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur.”

“Dr. Scott Stine, a paleoclimatologist at California State University at Hayward, used radiocarbon dating techniques to determine the age of the trees’ outermost annual growth rings, thereby establishing the ends of drought periods. He then calculated the lengths of the preceding dry spells by counting the rings in each stump. This method identified droughts lasting from A.D. 892 to A.D. 1112 and from A.D. 1209 to A.D. 1350. Judging by how far the water levels dropped during these periods — as much as 50 feet in some cases — Dr. Stine concluded that the [Medieval-era] droughts were not only much longer, they were far more severe than either the drought of 1928 to 1934, California’s worst in modern times, or the more recent severe dry spell of 1987 to 1992.”

The Historical Southwest U.S. Climate: 3.2°C Warmer During Medieval Times

“The paleoclimate modeled for Whitewing [Sierra Nevada, CA] during the Medieval period was significantly warmer and slightly drier than present . Medieval mean annual minimum temperature was warmer than current by 3.2°C, with large differences in winter (+3.5°C, January) and summer (+4.0°C, July). Mean annual maximum temperature was also greater in the Medieval period (+2.3°C), with greater differences in winter (+3.2°C, January) than summer (+2.6°C, July). Annual precipitation was less by 24 mm.”

“Long-term trends in the temperature reconstruction are indicative of a 125-year periodicity that may be linked to solar activity as reflected in radiocarbon and auroral records. The results indicate that both the warm intervals during the Medieval Warm Epoch (A.D. 800 to 1200) and the cold intervals during the Little Ice Age (A.D. 1200 to 1900) are closely associated with the 125-year [solar activity] period.”

Medieval Drought Lasted Hundreds Of Years And Was Much More Severe

“Paleoclimatic and model data indicate increased temperatures in western North America [∼AD 900–1300] of approximately 1 °C over the long-term mean. This was a period of extensive and persistent aridity over western North America. Paleoclimatic evidence suggests drought in the mid-12th century far exceeded the severity, duration, and extent of subsequent droughts.”

“The current California drought has cast a heavy burden on statewide agriculture and water resources, further exacerbated by concurrent extreme high temperatures. Furthermore, industrial-era global radiative forcing brings into question the role of long-term climate change on CA drought. How has human-induced climate change affected California drought risk? … The results thus indicatethe net effect of climate change has made agricultural drought less likely, and that the current severe impacts of drought on California’s agriculture has not been substantially caused by long-term climate changes.”

“Projected changes of a poleward extension of the subtropical dry zones simulated by climate models and the corresponding decrease of precipitation in the U.S. Southwest have not been found in observations to date because of the large natural climate variability.”

“The causes of the California drought during November to April winters of 2011/12 to 2013/14 are analyzed using observations and ensemble simulations with seven atmosphere models forced by observed SSTs. …[T]he precipitation deficit during the drought was dominated by natural variability, a conclusion framed by discussion of differences between observed and modeled tropical SST trends.”

“An analysis of the October 2013–September 2014 precipitation in the western United States and in particular over the California–Nevada region suggests this anomalously dry season, while extreme, is not unprecedented in comparison with the approximately 120-yr-long instrumental record of water year (WY; October–September) totals and in comparison with a 407-yr WY precipitation reconstruction dating back to 1571. Over this longer period, nine other years are known or estimated to have been nearly as dry or drier than WY 2014. The 3-yr deficit for WYs 2012–14, which in California exceeded the annual mean precipitation, is more extreme but also not unprecedented, occurring three other times over the past approximate 440 years in the reconstruction.”

Scientists: Natural Variability Dominates In Continental U.S. Drought

“Tree-ring records show that the twentieth century has been moist from the perspective of the last millennium and free of long and severe droughts that were abundant in previous centuries. The recent drought, forced by reduced precipitation and with reduced evaporation, has no signature of model-projected anthropogenic climate change.”

“[D]rought conditions over the period of instrumental records (since 1895) do not exhibit the full range of variability, severity, or duration of droughts during the last millennium. Thirteen decadal to multidecadal droughts (i.e., ≥10 years) occurred during the last millennium – the longest lasting sixty-one years and centered on the late twelfth century.”

Scientists: Natural Variability Dominates In Global-Scale Drought

“Megadroughts reconstructed over north-central Europe in the 11th and mid-15th centuries reinforce other evidence from North America and Asia that droughts were more severe, extensive, and prolonged over Northern Hemisphere land areas before the 20th century, with an inadequate understanding of their causes.”

“In this study, the nature and causes for observed regional precipitation trends during 1977–2006 are diagnosed. It is found that major features of regional trends in annual precipitation during 1977–2006 are consistent with an atmospheric response to observed sea surface temperature (SST) variability.This includes drying over the eastern Pacific Ocean that extends into western portions of the Americas related to a cooling of eastern Pacific SSTs, and broad increases in rainfall over the tropical Eastern Hemisphere, including a Sahelian rainfall recovery and increased wetness over the Indo–West Pacific related to North Atlantic and Indo–West Pacific ocean warming. It is further determined that these relationships between SST and rainfall change are generally not symptomatic of human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols.”

“Here we show that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades. More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.”

“Recent drought in 1993–2008 was still within the frame of natural climate variability based on the 306 yr PDSI reconstruction. The dry and wet phases of Lingkong Mountain were in accordance with changes in the summer Asian-Pacific oscillation and sunspot numbers, they also showed strong similarity to other tree-ring based moisture indexes in large areas in and around the CLP, indicating the moisture variability in the CLP [Chinese Loess Plateau] was almost synchronous and closely related with large-scale land–ocean–atmospheric circulation and solar activity.”

“Monthly precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) from the CRUTS3.1 data set are used to compute monthly P minus PET (PMPE) for the land areas of the globe. The percent of the global land area with annual sums of PMPE less than zero are used as an index of global drought (%drought) for 1901 through 2009. Results indicate that for the past century %drought has not changed, even though global PET and temperature (T) have increased.”

“Contrary to expectations, measurements of pan evaporation show decreases in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere over the last 50 years. When combined with rainfall measurements, these data show that much of the Northern Hemisphere’s terrestrial surface has becomeless aridover the last 50 years. However, whether the decrease in pan evaporation is a phenomenon limited to the Northern Hemisphere has until now been unknown because there have been no reports from the Southern Hemisphere. Here, we report a decrease in pan evaporation rate over the last 30 years acrossAustraliaof the same magnitude as the Northern Hemisphere trends (approximately −4 mm a−2). The results show that theterrestrial surface in Australia has, on average, become less arid over the recent past, just like much of the Northern Hemisphere.”

“Warming the troposphere enhances the cooling rate, thereby increasing precipitation, but this may be partly offset by a decrease in the efficiency of radiative cooling due to an increase in atmospheric CO2 (Allen and Ingram, 2002; Yang et al., 2003; Lambert et al., 2004; Sugi and Yoshimura, 2004). This suggests that global mean precipitation should respond more to changes in shortwave forcing than CO2 forcing, since shortwave forcings, such as volcanic aerosol, alter the temperature of the troposphere without affecting the efficiency of radiative cooling. This is consistent with a simulated decrease in precipitation following large volcanic eruptions [which cause cooling] (Robock and Liu, 1994; Broccoli et al., 2003), and may explain why anthropogenic influence has not been detected in measurements of global land mean precipitation (Ziegler et al., 2003; Gillett et al., 2004b), although Lambert et al. (2004) urge caution in applying the energy budget argument to land-only data.”

That statement by the UN-IPCC is admirably restrained but could do with some improvement to highlight the meaning it really holds —

A few added words to make the IPCC message clearer —

“Warming the troposphere enhances the cooling rate, thereby increasing precipitation[though this is debateable], but this may [or may not] be partly offset by a decrease in the efficiency of radiative cooling due to an increase in atmospheric CO2 (Allen and Ingram, 2002; Yang et al., 2003; Lambert et al., 2004; Sugi and Yoshimura, 2004). This suggests that global mean precipitation should [but might not]respond more to changes in shortwave forcing than CO2 forcing, since shortwave forcings, such as volcanic aerosol, alter the temperature of the troposphere without affecting the efficiency of radiative cooling. This is consistent with a simulated [computer model, not a citation of any observations]decrease in precipitation following large volcanic eruptions [which cause cooling] (Robock and Liu, 1994; Broccoli et al., 2003), and may [or may not] explain why anthropogenic influence has not been detected in measurements of global land mean precipitation (Ziegler et al., 2003; Gillett et al., 2004b), [or maybe there are no anthropogenic influences to be detected in measurements of global land mean precipitation] , although Lambert et al. (2004) urge caution in applying the energy budget argument to land-only data.”

No, weather is NOT climate…even when it’s warm outside. But in case there’s a climate cultist in your life that insists otherwise, here are some facts about global warming and vaguely-defined “extreme” weather that you can use to talk some sense into them.

Interesting paper.. shows essentially that ALL so-called warming has basically come from “Adjustments™” to the surface data.

It was found that each new version of GAST has nearly always exhibited a steeper warming linear trend over its entire history. And, it was nearly always accomplished by systematically removing the previously existing cyclical temperature pattern.

The conclusive findings of this research are that the three GAST data sets are not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments, that removed their cyclical temperature patterns, are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.

GAST includes surface data from NOAA, NASA, HADCrut, and any other series using GHCN data.

This amusing and very recent. Jun 15, 2017 HAHA!!! GLOBAL WARMING STUDY CANCELED, THE REASON WILL HAVE YOU ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING!!!

American Lookout reports, In a perfect example of irony, a scientific research study that intended to study global warming was cancelled after encountering large amounts of ice. Breitbart reported, A global warming research study in Canada has been cancelled because of “unprecedented” thick summer ice. Naturally, the scientist in charge has blamed it on ‘climate change.’

My mistake. I saw “Wiki” and assumed you were quoting from Wikipedia, which is run by the likes of William Connolley in cases of climate change “information”. Of course, RationalWiki also toes the company line regarding Climategate as a nothing-to-see-here too. Actually, Climategate was one of the turning points for me personally. Discussing the manipulation of temperature data to show more warming is rather egregious to me.

Worth noting is that RationalWiki is also deemed to have a slight (politically center-left) bias compared to Wikipedia — and that’s no surprise, as we explicitly do not aim for a neutral point of view. Note also that the comparison made here to Wikipedia is not to be confused with us considering RationalWiki an encyclopedia (we don’t).

The IPCC carbon budget concludes that changes in atmospheric CO2 are driven by fossil fuel emissions on a year by year basis. A testable implication of the validity of this carbon budget is that changes in atmospheric CO2 should be correlated with fossil fuel emissions at an annual time scale net of long term trends. A test of this relationship with insitu CO2 data from Mauna Loa 1958-2016 and flask CO2 data from twenty three stations around the world 1967-2015 is presented. The test fails to show that annual changes in atmospheric CO2 levels can be attributed to annual emissions. The finding is consistent with prior studies that found no evidence to relate the rate of warming to emissions and they imply that the IPCC carbon budget is flawed possibly because of insufficient attention to uncertainty, excessive reliance on net flows, and the use of circular reasoning that subsumes a role for fossil fuel emissions in the observed increase in atmospheric CO2.

Yes, thank you. Dr. Munshi had sent notification that his 2015 paper had been updated. I will use this one in future discussions of the non-correlation between year-to-year CO2 emissions (humans) and Mauna Loa changes.

Let’s hope that you don’t continue to make the mistake of comparing amounts with different units with each other when you “use this one in future discussions”. Munshi doesn’t do it and neither should you 😉

The argument still seems to be that human emissions don’t correlate with CO2 concentration increase … completely ignoring the trend and all models of gas (CO2) exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean surface.

I’d like to repost this image: http://imgur.com/a/i5JfV … do those lines correlate? If you know what they are you know how they are connected to each other … yet, no correlation, but the red line is causing the orange line to increase.

Of course the trend is ignored in that Munshi paper. They explicitly try to correlate detrended time series.

Airborne fraction is the percentage of human CO2 that remains in the atmosphere, e.g. roughly the increase in atmospheric CO2 content divided by human emissions in that year. You do realize that, do you?

Since the ocean CO2 uptake has increased proportionally with the atmospheric CO2 content it has been like this (around half of our emissions get absorbed) for a long time now. It’s basically a result of the mechanisms involved.

Airborne fraction correlates very well since it is derived from anthropogenic emissions and the annual increase in CO2. Why do you think it doesn’t correlate?

Of course the trend is ignored in that Munshi paper. They explicitly try to correlate detrended time series.

The trend for temperature increasing since 1979 is also “ignored” in the paper (it’s detrended too), but as Munshi points out, the [detrended] temperature—>CO2 change is found to be correlated, while the human emissions—>CO2 change is not correlated. In other words, the detrending has little or nothing to do with establishing that human emissions don’t correlate with CO2 changes, but temperature change preceding CO2 change does correlate. Did you miss this?

“Detrended analysis shows that changes in atmospheric CO2 are related to surface temperature both in the long term and in the short term over a wide range of time scales. In comparing these results with the similar detrended analysis of the responsiveness of changes in atmospheric CO2 to the rate of anthropogenic emissions, it is noteworthy that Figure 10 [temperature–>CO2 change correlation] represents a more credible relationship than Figure 6 [human emission–>CO2 change correlation] which shows no responsiveness of annual changes in atmospheric CO2 to the annual rate of anthropogenic emissions in the detrended series.

“Airborne fraction correlates very well”

Uh, no it doesn’t. Climate models have for decades predicted that the airborne fraction would rise as emissions rose. It hasn’t. Emissions rise dramatically as the AF remains constant, even decreases. Notice that the red and blue trend lines are headed in opposite directions after 2000 here.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GL040613/full“[T]he trend in the airborne fraction [ratio of CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere to the CO2 flux into the atmosphere due to human activity] since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero. … Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found.”
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Even James Hansen himself admits that the AF isn’t operating according to what the models said should happen (the AF should increase as the emissions increase).
–“However, it is the dependence of the airborne fraction on fossil fuel emission rate that makes the post-2000 downturn of the airborne fraction particularly striking. The change of emission rate in 2000 from 1.5% yr-1 [1960-2000] to 3.1% yr-1 [2000-2011], other things being equal, would [should] have caused a sharp increase of the airborne fraction”

In other words, the detrending has little or nothing to do with establishing that human emissions don’t correlate with CO2 changes

This exactly! Because the trend that is missing after detrending both time series is the human emissions caused atmospheric CO2 content change.

By pointing out that only temperature correlates you make it sound like human emissions have nothing to do with increase itself. Which is not – as you now admitted – the case.

Uh, no it [AF correlation] doesn’t. Climate models have for decades predicted that the airborne fraction would rise as emissions rose.

What climate models? The ones I know have CO2 uptake reacting to CO2 concentration, not human emissions. It just so happens that the concentration increases at the same pace as our emissions increase, resulting in a near constant airborne fraction.

BTW: since we are talking about the airborne fraction here and you obviously know what it is, why do you still think that 40-50% of human emissions staying in the atmosphere per year and CO2 concentration increasing by roughly the same amount of CO2 each year is not a clear sign that we are responsible for 100% of the concentration increase?

“the trend that is missing after detrending both time series is the human emissions caused atmospheric CO2 content change.”

No, as Munshi writes (and as other observers have noted again and again), the temperature-change-leads/causes-CO2-change better explains the cause-effect than can human CO2-emission-causes-CO2 concentration change does. This is true for both trended and detrended series. It’s amazing how effortlessly you twist what has been written to fit your own point of view. The Munshi paper does NOT support your beliefs that 100% of the atmospheric CO2 change is caused by humans.

Ahlbeck, 2009: “The increase rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide for the period from 1980 to 2007 can be statistically explained as being a function solely of the global mean temperature. Throughout the period, the temperature differences seem to have caused differences around a base trend of 1.5 ppmv/year. The atmospheric CO2 increase rate was higher when the globe was warmer, and the increase rate was lower when the globe was cooler. This can be explained by wind patterns, biological processes, or most likely by the fact that a warmer ocean can hold less carbon dioxide. This finding indicates that knowledge of the rate of anthropogenic emission is not needed for estimation of the increase rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

“What climate models?”

Knorr, 2009 “Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found.”

It’s rather amazing how you are able to argue about the airborne fraction and on the other hand try to make up an argument that CO2 concentration follows temperature. That’s really difficult to grasp … I mean the airborne fraction is by definition telling us that 40-50% of the CO2 emitted stays in the atmosphere … and surprise, that’s the amount the atmospheric CO2 content increases!

The Munshi paper doesn’t refute that human CO2 emissions are responsible for the increase. They only thing this shows is that variations in the increase correlate with temperature.

Variations in CO2 concentration increases is following temperature. Not surprising at all since this is the model used by everyone. What temperature doesn’t explain is the increase of the CO2 concentration itself. Which – coming back to the beginning – is of the same magnitude as the what is left from human emissions in the atmosphere (airborne fraction).

Trying to not see you as an all-or-nothing guy is really hard when you try to argument like this …

“The test fails to show that annual changes in atmospheric CO2 levels can be attributed to annual emissions. The finding is consistent with prior studies that found no evidence to relate the rate of warming to emissions and they imply that the IPCC carbon budget is flawed possibly because of insufficient attention to uncertainty, excessive reliance on net flows, and the use of circular reasoning that subsumes a role for fossil fuel emissions in the observed increase in atmospheric CO2.”

“It’s rather amazing how you are able to argue about the airborne fraction and on the other hand try to make up an argument that CO2 concentration follows temperature.”

I’ll continue to amaze you, then. Carbon models say that the AF should increase along with increases in emissions rates. They haven’t. The AF has stayed the same (or decreased) despite a pronounced increase in emissions.

Changes in CO2 concentrations driven by changes in temperature (oceans release more CO2 when warmed, retain more when cooled) is not an argument that I’ve “made up”. It has been observed in the data for decades:

“What temperature doesn’t explain is the increase of the CO2 concentration itself.”

Ahlbeck, 2009: “The increase rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide for the period from 1980 to 2007 can be statistically explained as being a function solely of the global mean temperature. Throughout the period, the temperature differences seem to have caused differences around a base trend of 1.5 ppmv/year. The atmospheric CO2 increase rate was higher when the globe was warmer, and the increase rate was lower when the globe was cooler. This can be explained by wind patterns, biological processes, or most likely by the fact that a warmer ocean can hold less carbon dioxide. This finding indicates that knowledge of the rate of anthropogenic emission is not needed for estimation of the increase rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

How often does this need repeating? The Munshi paper compares detrended data. That’s good to compare variations in a trend, but that completely ignores the overall trend.

Fill a swimming pool with a constant source of water (a garden hose maybe) and now get someone to help you by getting buckets of water from inside your house. Measure the water level, detrend it and compare it to the detrended water input figures. You’ll notice that it correlates perfectly to the bucket input, not the garden hose input. But you wouldn’t argue that it was the bucket that filled the pool, would you?

The AF has stayed the same (or decreased) despite a pronounced increase in emissions.

Do you know what the AF is? Do you know how it is connected to human emissions? And how can you not see that 40-50% of our emissions staying in the atmosphere (4-5 GtC) is roughly the amount the CO2 content increases each year?

So to recap:
– scientists give a perfectly reasonable explanation of why rain and droughts are caused by global warming
– warm temperatures in the past caused longer and more severe droughts
– it’s supposed to be natural variability that caused the last California drought and in fact all droughts

So what is the problem now? It is getting warmer, so shouldn’t we expect longer and more severe droughts? And if warmer temperatures lead to this, is that part of the natural variability? What if those warmer temperatures aren’t caused by natural variability?

The title of this blog post seems to make fun of “climate activists” for blaming global warming to be the cause of both rain and droughts. I am missing the part where it is shown that this is, in fact, ridiculous or impossible.

And so on … cherry picking papers is a good strategy to support a certain point of view, but that’s unfortunately possible for any point of view. So beware letting lists of papers on a topic convince you of some claim. Those lists are most likely incomplete. Google Scholar and similar search engines are your friend 😉

“It is getting warmer, so shouldn’t we expect longer and more severe droughts?”

Warmth means more water, not less. That’s why there’s supposed to be more water vapor intensification, which will allegedly lead to more warming, which will lead to more water, which will lead to more warming… So it’s expected we’d get fewer droughts with warming. Or perhaps more. Or maybe we’ll get more floods. Or less floods. Maybe we’ll get both at the same time. And the cause? Humans, of course. (I think you may have missed the point of the article entirely, which was expected.)

IPCC summarizing statements from AR5 (2013): “In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century.” Why, SebastianH, have we not had more global-scale droughts? That’s what’s expected, right? And why should we expect that…with warming?

Precipitation patterns are driven by solar activity, not 0.000001 variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide. But you go right on ahead and believe that humans cause droughts by driving cars and flying in planes and heating their homes with natural gas.

“The title of this blog post seems to make fun of ‘climate activists’ for blaming global warming to be the cause of both rain and droughts.”

No. The title of the post makes fun of blaming humans for both severe droughts and flooding. Humans are not “global warming”.

By the way, SebastianH, you obviously didn’t realize that there is an “excellent understanding” that cooling sea surface temperatures are considered to be the cause of California droughts. (See the citations below documenting this “consensus”.) How do humans cause the cooling of sea surface temperatures that cause droughts? Can you explain that scientifically?
—http://www.pnas.org/content/110/24/9651.fullLate Holocene climate in western North America was punctuated by periods of extended aridity called megadroughts. These droughts have been linked to cool eastern tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Here, we show both short-term and long-term climate variability over the last 1,500 y from annual band thickness and stable isotope speleothem data. Several megadroughts are evident, including a multicentury one, AD 1350–1650, herein referred to as Super Drought, which corresponds to the coldest period of the Little Ice Age. Synchronicity between southwestern North American, Chinese, and West African monsoon precipitation suggests the megadroughts were hemispheric in scale. Northern Hemisphere monsoon strength over the last millennium is positively correlated with Northern Hemisphere temperature and North Atlantic SST. The megadroughts are associated with cooler than average SST and Northern Hemisphere temperatures. Furthermore, the megadroughts, including the Super Drought, coincide with solar insolation minima, suggesting that solar forcing of sea surface and atmospheric temperatures may generate variations in the strength of Northern Hemisphere monsoons. Our findings seem to suggest stronger (wetter) Northern Hemisphere monsoons with increased warming.
—http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/pub/cook/2009_Cook_IPCC_paleo-drought.pdfThere is an excellent understanding now that the multi-year historical droughts in the West [California] are frequently linked to cool La Nin˜a-like sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical Pacific El Nin˜o–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) region (e.g. Cole et al., 2002; Fye et al., 2004; Seager et al., 2005; Herweijer et al., 2006; Cook et al., 2007; Herweijer and Seager, 2008), the turn of the century [~2000 CE] drought being the most recent example (Seager, 2007). [The tropical Pacific cooled during 1979-2008, which is linked to the droughts in California.]

Papers don’t prove anything AndyG55, they are evidence. Proofs are something you do in math.

You still haven’t provided anything in all these discussions. No numbers, no explanations of how things are supposed to work in your magic world. I realize that I am the one intruding on your turf here and I need to explain why I think you are wrong, but you showing nothing in return is pretty telling.

Not asking you to “prove a negative” here. But you should at least be able to explain what causes warming in a convective atmosphere that is consistent with observations and physics. You should be able to explain what exactly warms the oceans and give W/m² to support that. You should be able to demonstrate that more CO2 is beneficial at the end. This includes that either CO2 has no effect on temperatures or that higher temperatures aren’t bad enough to cancel out the benefit from better plant growth.

So far …. nothing.

@Kenneth:

And the cause? Humans, of course. (I think you may have missed the point of the article entirely, which was expected.)

How do humans cause the cooling of sea surface temperatures that cause droughts? Can you explain that scientifically?

Why would humans need to cause the cooling? Amplification is enough to cause more severe droughts. If El Nino events become more powerful with increased OHC due to increased CO2 forcing, then El Nina events shouldn’t stay normal either.

So you actually believe that 0.000001 changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are what cause El Nino/La Nina events to become “more powerful” and not “normal”? SebastianH, ENSO events are not driven by human activity. They are naturally occurring events. There have been 20 El Nino (warm) events and 13 La Nina (cooling) events since the 1950s. The discrepancy between the two (more warming events than cooling) can explain the warming.
—

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/340780#.VzB0zw-3sCA.twitterThe current El Nino phenomenon that has brought prolonged drought and sweltering heat to Malaysia is the strongest of the 20 over the last 60 years, but there is no concrete evidence to link its heat intensity to global warming, says an expert. Climatologist and oceanographer Prof Dr Fredolin Tangang of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia said this year’s El Nino was even more extreme than the severe phenomena experienced in 1982/82 and 1997/98.

“There is no conclusive evidence that the occurrence of El Nino (frequency and intensity) is influenced by climate change,” said Tangang, who had served from 2008 to 2015 as vice-chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations agency.

The IPCC, which comprises representatives from 190 countries, produces a report every six to seven years on the trend of global climate change, its causes and impacts and how to migitate these. Saying that the current El Nino was in its final stretch and that the condition in the Pacific Ocean was expected to return to neutral by June, Tangang stated that the IPCC, in its latest report released in 2013, did not come up with a conclusion on the inter-relation between El Nino and global warming. He said that unlike typhoons, which the IPCC concluded would increase in intensity as global warming intensified, El Nino occurrences did not switch in frequency or intensity due to climate change.

“El Nino is a naturally occurring phenomenon, which is part of the inter-annual variability associated with oscillation of the atmosphere-ocean interaction in the Pacific Ocean that occurs in a two- to seven-year cycle.”

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682615300985
The various techniques have been used to confer the existence of significant relations between the number of Sunspots and different terrestrial climate parameters such as rainfall, temperature, dewdrops, aerosol and ENSO, etc. Improved understanding and modelling of Sunspots variations can explore the information about the related variables. This study uses a Markov chain method to find the relations between monthly Sunspots and ENSO data of two epochs (1996–2009 and 1950–2014). … Moreover, perfect validation of dependency and stationary tests endorses the applicability of the Markov chain analyses on Sunspots and ENSO data. This shows that a significant relation between Sunspots and ENSO data exists.
—http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/94JC01621/full
Beside the strong effects on vertical mixing, solar radiation is the primary heating term in the surface layer heat budget, and wind forcing influences SST by driving oceanic advective processes that redistribute heat in the upper ocean.
—http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999JC000130/abstractSources of global warming in upper ocean temperature during El Niño
[G]lobal warming and cooling during Earth’s internal mode of interannual climate variability arise from fluctuations in the global hydrological balance, not the global radiation balance. Since it occurs in the absence of extraterrestrial and anthropogenic forcing, global warming on decadal, interdecadal, and centennial period scales may also occur in association with Earth’s internal modes of climate variability on those scales.
—http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys-discuss.net/2/1447/2015/npgd-2-1447-2015.pdf
Introduction: Several recent studies of solar–geomagnetic effects on climate have been examined on both global as well as on regional scales.The Sun’s long-term magnetic variability is the primary driver of climatic changes. The magnetic variability (mostly short-term components) is due to the disturbances in Earth’s magnetic fields caused by the solar activity, which is usually indicated by indices of geomagnetic activity. The Sun’s magnetic variability modulates the magnetic and particulate fluxes in the heliosphere. This determines the interplanetary conditions and imposes significant electromagnetic forces and effects upon planetary atmospheres. All these effects are due to the changing solar-magnetic fields which are relevant for planetary climates, including the climate of the Earth. The Sun–Earth relationship varies on different time scales of days to years bringing a drastic influence on the climatic patterns. … The another most important climate variation is El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, which impact the global oceanic and atmospheric circulations which thereby produce droughts, floods and intense rainfall in certain regions. The strong coupling and interactions between the Tropical Ocean and atmosphere play a major role in the development of global climatic system. … In particular, the El Niño, solar, geomagnetic activities are the major affecting forces on the decadal and interdecadal temperature variability on global and regional scales in a direct/indirect way.

The Sun is the energy source for everything. Where do ENSO events draw their energy from? From the heat content. It gets “charged up” by the Sun and released periodically. This happens faster when backradiation increases.

“The Sun is the energy source for everything. Where do ENSO events draw their energy from? From the heat content.”

And the heat content of the ocean is modulated by variations in shortwave radiation absorption. ENSO events are a redistribution of the heat implanted in the ocean by solar radiation. There are no physical measurements, empirical observations, or controlled experiments that demonstrate that varying CO2 concentrations over water bodies cause heat changes in water bodies. You have affirmed that you have nothing to support your beliefs time and time again by failing to produce anything that would resemble real-world evidence. All you have are models, beliefs, and condescension and derision for those who question your positions.

“This happens faster when backradiation increases.”

Backradiation from what mechanism? CO2? Scientists don’t even mention CO2 as a mechanism when discussing the factors that influence ocean heat content change. Or if they do, it’s to mention how insignificant it is relative to cloud LW forcing. For example:

“I don’t see how ENSO events are correlating with sunspots (in a linear fashion).”

That’s because you’ve already settled on your conclusion that net ocean heat content changes are caused by humans, and therefore any other natural explanation that undermines that conclusion is worthy of dismissal and/or derision. I have access to many dozens of papers that have been published in the last few years linking solar radiation variations to ENSO. If I thought it would make a difference, I would provide you with several of them. But you’ve got your mind made up already: CO2 is the cause.

Kenneth, it has been shown that varying backradiation causes changes in heat content. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and varies backradiation. That part is undisputed. I hope you are not arguing against this basic law of physics. However, there are different ways for bodies of water to get rid of excess incoming energy, e.g. by evaporation and increased conduction. So it could be possible that all of the imbalance caused by more CO2 in the atmosphere is taken care of this way. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been conclusively shown. And if those mechanisms only take care of 50% or 30% of the imbalance, then the heat content of the body of water will increase.

So what is that you like to refute? That evaporation and conduction get rid of only part of the imbalance or that changing backradiation causes change of the heat content in bodies of water (or in fact anything that is not transparent to LW radiation) if no other mechanism takes care of the imbalance?

Scientists don’t even mention CO2 as a mechanism when discussing the factors that influence ocean heat content change.

This one is getting old now … didn’t the comment get through where I explained to you why each and every one of your listed papers wasn’t mentioning CO2?

Your linked paper about cloud forcing is from 1989. Don’t you think that something more recent (with more and better satellite data available) would better represent the current state of our understanding of this topic?

If global cloud forcing is value X W/m² then a change by Y percent or the cloud cover is what matters to actually change the energy budget. So if X is -21 W/m² and cloud cover changes from 70% to 69%, then this results in an increased forcing by 0.3 W/m² … if it changes from 68% to 64% over a longer time period (the graphs I could find suggest 20+ years) that mean 0 W/m² of additional forcing at the beginning and 1.24 W/m² at the end or 0.62 W/m² on average.

I think it’s the other way around. You settled on “it can’t be humans”. Somehow you convinced yourself that heat content uptake can only be caused by solar variations and nothing else. I wonder how that works … why is heat content increasing while the Sun is getting weaker?

Be very specific. Cite a source using observed physical measurements from a controlled real-world experiment showing just how influential CO2 backradiation is at cooling or heating water when it is raised or lowered. You do have this real-world evidence available, right?

“if those mechanisms only take care of 50% or 30% of the imbalance, then the heat content of the body of water will increase.”

By how much? Quantify it using real-world physical measurements. If CO2 was lowered by -10 parts per million (-0.00001) over a body of water, by how much would that body of water cool? Cite the controlled experiment verifying this.

“This one is getting old now … didn’t the comment get through where I explained to you why each and every one of your listed papers wasn’t mentioning CO2?”

Apparently it didn’t get through. But if it had, I hardly think this “explanation” would stand scrutiny. Could it be possible that the reason why CO2 isn’t mentioned as a factor influencing the skin effect (where backradiation does all its damage since it can’t penetrate past that micrometer layer) is because its alleged forcing is so negligible relative to the other factors influencing the skin effect? Why isn’t methane mentioned as a factor? It’s a greenhouse gas.

“Your linked paper about cloud forcing is from 1989.”

It has 1,450 citations, with about 100 citations coming just within the last year. Have the physics of cloud radiative forcing changed? If so, explain how and when that happened.

“You settled on ‘it can’t be humans’.”

I have never written that “it can’t be humans”. I don’t use the word can’t, as that indicates 0% possibility. And my position used to be more aligned with your side, as I assumed that humans play a substantial role, until about 2009 or so (Climategate). I was relying heavily on the argument from authority – since so many scientists agreed, they must be right (I thought). And then I really dug into it…and came out of it aligned with skeptics. I’ve switched sides…because your side is based on modeling and a lack of real-world physical evidence…and couldn’t explain how CO2 heats or cools the ocean with real-world physical evidence, and still can’t. That’s what did it for me.

“Somehow you convinced yourself that heat content uptake can only be caused by solar variations and nothing else.”

No, those are your own made up words. I don’t use words like “only” or phrases like “nothing else” as it applies to causation. I don’t do the 0% vs. 100% dichotomies you dishonestly try to box me into. I understand why you do this (make up straw man arguments). You have nothing left.

1) Don’t interpret statements in papers however you want. I guess you don’t realize that the emphasis in your quote only describes the LW radiation effect without the SW radiation effect. Their conclusion is cloud forcing ranges from -13.2 W/m² to -21.3 W/m² coming from incomplete data (see the first paragraph on page number 62).

4) I keep copies of my comments in the case they vanish … so this is what I wrote about your papers:

First paper you mention: re-read the abstract and learn what is meant by “these biases”

Second paper: their spectrum (Fig. 5) included the wavelength CO2 emits at and also the paper is trying to show a way to more accurately measure sea surface temperatures from space. You quote is about the emitted radiation from the sea surface at various angles and how parts of that radiation are blocked by water vapor, etc. It doesn’t have anything to do with the effect of backradiation on warming.

Third paper: CO2 is not mentioned in your emphasis because it is no meteorological parameter. There is also a difference between incoming radiation in the first list of things determining the total flux and the mention of incoming solar radiation and latent heat being the most important. Unfortunately, the full paper is paywalled. But I bet GHG LW radiation is mentioned in that paper.

Fourth paper: the conclusions all seem to be about wind affecting the skin layer. The authors don’t seem to look at other things influencing the gradient and merely cite papers that do.

5)

It has 1,450 citations, with about 100 citations coming just within the last year. Have the physics of cloud radiative forcing changed?

See 1) … they used incomplete data. Just 4 months of the ERBE data. Later papers have probably access to a more complete set of satellite measured LW and SW forcing of clouds.

6) Climategate isn’t what skeptics imagine it to be.

7)

couldn’t explain how CO2 heats or cools the ocean with real-world physical evidence, and still can’t. That’s what did it for me.

Of there is evidence … lots of evidence. But you conveniently require that there should be experimental data from actually changing the CO2 content of the atmosphere and measuring what happens to a body of water. I guess that is ok if it helps you to stay in skeptics wonderland. It just doesn’t make it less true that more backradiation always causes heat content buildup. Without it, there can’t be any increase in evaporation or conduction. And no, that is not a belief. That’s physics. You can keep arguing that the heat content increase is lessened by evaporation, etc … that doesn’t change the fundamental physics involved that you try to dispute here.

8) I will try not to put you in 0% or 100% boxes. But sometimes your wording suggests that you are a all or nothing type of person (e.g. no correlation = not the cause)

“You make up things I never said/wrote and that Nikolov/Zeller paper is anything but “real science”. It’s correlation without causation … the very thing that people here claim AGW proponents are doing.”

Your side does “do” correlation = causation, SebastianH.

How else would you explain why your side believes that humans are responsible for the net increase in ocean heat content since 1955…since there are no physical measurements, real-world observational evidence, or controlled scientific experiment showing that varying CO2 concentrations over water bodies in volumes of + or – 0.000001 causes heat changes in those bodies of water? It’s ALL correlation: Human CO2 emissions rose; OHC rose; therefore, Human CO2 emissions caused OHC to rise. That IS exactly what your side does.

Nope, and I won’t bother explaining that to you again. I did that multiple times now … and you don’t seem to understand. Either because you can’t or because you don’t want to … I don’t know and I don’t care.

Nope? So you’re saying that there is, in fact, causation that has been established in an actual controlled, real-world experiment? It’s not just in models? Great! Cite the evidence, with physical measurements, that affirms that CO2 heats and cools water when raised or lowered in the real world, and how much.

Your inner hatred of CO2 will not ALLOW you to see that it is NOT a driver of temperature in any way what so ever, and is in fact totally beneficial and absolutely essential for all life on this CARBON-BASED planet of ours.

Attacking the very constituents of your existence, truly requires a moronic state of mind. !!!

seb,
“It is getting warmer, so shouldn’t we expect longer and more severe droughts? And if warmer temperatures lead to this, is that part of the natural variability? What if those warmer temperatures aren’t caused by natural variability?”

You silly boy!
So stop your ignorant rant, read the paper, and understand that there is very little modern warming if any.
Your referenced papers are based on the assumption human induced warming is happening. The reality is the only human induced warming was in the continual adjustments to the temperature figures and not the real temperature.

I find is fascinating that you trust a “paper” like this to get things right and have such a deep rooted distrust against adjustments of temperature records. What if the “paper” is wrong? (serious question).

The “paper” is laughable at best. While reading it I felt like NASA must have felt when they were forced to say that there are no child s** slaves on Mars.

The comparison with satellite data at the end is particularly interesting as RSSv4 has shown that previous satellite data was less accurate than surface data. Yet they see this as the benchmark …

It is no coincidence that stories like this only get picked up by the crazy people media outlets (Dailycaller, Breitbart, Heartland Institute, etc).

Climategate was another such non-story that still lives as a legend in skeptics circles and gets occasionally mentioned. Why do you tend to believe claims like this? Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence!

The paper about adjustments of temperature records certainly is far more believable than any you list above.

Your papers —
“onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL059748/full (by human induced warming)” What because the planet has warmed up since 1970 this paper assigns that to human activity. Sorry not very persuasive.

your second paper (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064924/full)
“…Based on the ensemble of calculations, California drought conditions were record breaking in 2014, but probably not record breaking in 2012–2014, contrary to prior findings.” By definition these model ensemble assume warming is from human induced CO2, so sorry not very persuasive.

In fact all your listed papers have this in build confirmatory bias of AGW. Sorry not very persuasive.

Obviously, Michael Mann’s lecture is convincing evidence for followers like SebastianH. It’s the wet-gets-wetter, dry-gets-drier belief (or here, “paradigm”).
—http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064127/abstract
Substantial changes in the hydrological cycle are projected for the 21st century, but these projections are subject to major uncertainties. In this context, the ‘dry gets drier, wet gets wetter’ (DDWW) paradigm is often used as a simplifying summary. However, recent studies cast doubt on the validity of the paradigm and also on applying the widely used P-E (precipitation-evapotranspiration) metric over global land surfaces. Here we show in a comprehensive CMIP5-based assessment that projected changes in mean annual P-E are generally not significant, except for high-latitude regions showing wetting conditions until the end of the 21st century. Significant increases in aridity do occur in many subtropical, but also adjacent humid regions. However, combining both metrics still shows that ca. 70% of all land area will not experience significant changes. Based on these findings we conclude that the DDWW paradigm is generally not confirmed for projected changes in most land areas.
—http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0369.1?af=R
The response of precipitation minus evapotranspiration to climate warming: Why the “wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier” scaling does not hold over land

Most of the land is not near the coasts, California is near the coast.

What I find amazing about skeptics is that they seem to be only able to think in linear terms. If one variable increases, something else increases or decreases accordingly. They do that despite claiming that it is a too complex system to fully understand.

Did you come to an understanding yet of why CO2 concentration (before industrialization) could decrease even though temperatures increased and vice versa?

“What I find amazing about skeptics is that they seem to be only able to think in linear terms. If one variable increases, something else increases or decreases accordingly. They do that despite claiming that it is a too complex system to fully understand.”

I have no idea who or what you might be referring to. If it’s me or something I’ve written, this characterization couldn’t be more erroneous. I fully expect that you have, once again, dishonestly made up a position or thought and then falsely attributed it to “skeptics”. That’s what you do habitually. Making up straw men is all you have left.

In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. — IPCC TAR (2001) Section 14.2.2.2 Page 774

Climate models are unable to predict extreme events because they lack spatial and temporal resolution. In addition, there is no clear evidence that sustained or worldwide changes in extreme events have occurred in the past few decades. —- IPCC AR4 (2007) Section 8.3.9.3 Page 232

You (the skeptics) are largely looking for linear connections. One thing changes and another thing reacts proportionally. But that’s not always the case. And when it’s not the case skeptics still try to find that linear link and if they can’t they declare that there is no connection. All this despite emphasizing quite often that it’s a complex system.

As for you: you always mention the year-to-year increase of human emissions not matching the change in CO2 concentration. That’s different from what I meant (you purposely use amounts with different units in your comparisons), but the strategy is the same. You try to show that there is no linear connection and therefore there is no connection at all. Same for CO2 levels rising when the temperature was falling (in the Holocene, before industrialization).

You all do this quite often. I’ll try to point it out next time you do 😉

“You (the skeptics) are largely looking for linear connections. One thing changes and another thing reacts proportionally.”

That is a lie and appears to be a projection of your own situation.

You could prove it is so by citing examples of such behavior. However be aware the term “(the skeptics)” is your simplification because you have difficulties not differentiating one person from another. You are setting yourself up for a ‘them versus us situation’ mainly because your arguments are particularly weak and not very convincing.

But then again that’s all I could expect from all you AGW religious advocates. 🙂

I am describing examples of Kenneth’s behavior in trying to find linear connections and if they don’t exist declaring no connection at all (CO2 and temperature in the Holocene).

I merely wanted to express one of the observation I have made in the last 6 months. The context here was that Kenneth can’t believe that (human caused) global warming can be both, the reason for more precipitation and the reason for more severe droughts.

“I am describing examples of Kenneth’s behavior in trying to find linear connections and if they don’t exist declaring no connection at all (CO2 and temperature in the Holocene).”

And, of course, I DID NOT declare “no connection at all (CO2 and temperature in the Holocene)”. You have, yet again, dishonestly made up a position/thought that I did not write. You have nothing else to do but attack made-up positions. Does the dishonesty ever stop? There is a connection between CO2 and temperature during the Holocene. CO2 rose from 180 ppm to 255 ppm several hundred years after the Pleistocene/Holocene temperature change occurred.

“Kenneth can’t believe that (human caused) global warming can be both, the reason for more precipitation and the reason for more severe droughts.”

You’ve done it again. Two paragraphs, two made up positions.

I can indeed agree with a wealth of scientific literature that a change in sea surface temperatures (brought on by changes in the natural oceanic oscillations, which are linked to solar influences) could be linked to changes in precipitation (such as the East Asian Monsoon variability). The problem with your characterization above is that you just assume that “(human caused) global warming” is the determinative reality for precipitation changes.

You wrote “There is an inverse correlation between the accepted CO2 values for the Holocene and temperature changes for the Holocene. For example, CO2 concentration rose as temperatures cooled during the Little Ice Age period (1300 to 1900 CE).”

You also wrote “These inconsistencies and incompatibilities and non-correlations are routinely dismissed by those who attribute all or nearly all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 to human activity.”

You are searching for correlations without understanding the mechanisms involved. And when you do not find those correlations or notice contradictions and you declare that this is “routinely dismissed” by those attributing the increase to human emissions.

Can you tell me how the different lines correlate with each other? Do you realize that it important to understand the mechanisms involved now that you looked at this graph (of acceleration vs. speed vs. distance)?

“You are searching for correlations without understanding the mechanisms involved.”

I am searching for correlations because YOUR SIDE claims that, even during the Holocene, temperatures rose because CO2 rose. Ferdinand Engelbeen claims there is a correlation between fluctuating temperatures and CO2 throughout the Holocene – including the Little Ice Age. He even claims that CO2 fell as a consequence of the LIA cooling. I am merely pointing out that this claimed correlation doesn’t stand. That’s why I have increasingly come to the conclusion that our interpretations of ancient atmospheric CO2 concentrations from ice core air bubbles is likely flawed/contaminated. It’s highly likely that CO2 concentrations were (much) higher than today during the Holocene Thermal Maximum, for example. We have measurements that extend into the 500s, 600s, 700s ppm. But those measurements are rejected because they don’t fit the AGW paradigm.

I refuse to engage in your attempts at analogous diversion from the topic at hand by commenting on your gratuitous graphic.

“merely want to express one of the observation I have made in the last 6 months.”

My observation is that seb is a nil-educated scientifically nil-literate AGW troll with a base-level brain-washed hatred of that atmospheric CO2 that keeps the whole Earth alive.

So deep is his inner hatred, that wishes it GONE, and all life on Earth with it and is prepared to LIE, FABRICATE and destroy whole nations economies with totally unreliable power supply on the back of that CO2 hatred..

Seb, never seems to pay much attention, and certainly has never given due consideration to the weather and climate being a matrix of many, mostly non-linear, loosely coupled, feedback systems with variable timing coefficient.
Given the enormous multi-hysteresises in the weather’s numerous non-linear multi-reactive systems it would be highly unlikely that Michael Mann imaginary ideas could ever happen.
Climate in this world is not like some clockwork mechanism; like some old Victorian ideas of nature having a place for everything and everything being in its place. Nature is messy, life plays by it’s own rules. As Willis Eschenbach says in https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/30/carbon-and-carbonate/

Life has a habit of making chemical reactions go in unexpected directions and at speeds unseen anywhere outside of living creatures. Despite the chemical reality of increased CO2 making the precipitation of CaCO3 slightly harder, the coccolithophores pay little attention to how steep the energetic hill is. They just keep cranking, and in this case, even speed up.

I find this very important because according to the study, coccolithophores are estimated to be responsible for about half of all precipitation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the ocean. Half. That’s a lot.

“Sebastian writes these two sections,that reflect how little understand the effect of CO2 today:

“Because it is a greenhouse gas”

“and the only one we have any control over.”

===================================

The first one is irrelevant since hardly anyone dispute it,despite its misleading definition.

The second one is absurd,since the MODERN effect of additional CO2 is very small.

Surely most skeptics by now realize that most of the postulated CO2 warm forcing effect was already set in hundred of million years ago. Any additional amount in Modern times is trivial in comparison,which is why it has negligible effect on the heat budget in the atmosphere,of today.

Here is the science friendly chart that is based based on Modtran results that explains it so obviously:

Kenneth’s point about a “0.000001 changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations” is valid one since TODAY’S CO2 warm forcing effect is minimal,since most of it was already done in the first 60 ppm. Which was around 800 MILLION years ago.

Warmists seems completely ignorant of this,which is why they persist in their utter delusion,while the rest of us long ago understood,that CO2 levels o0f today has a trivial effect on today’s temperature changes.

I can not possibly answer to every reply and when I don’t look at the comment RSS feed for half a day it can happen that they just slip by. Sorry.

While it is true that the scale for the influence CO2 has on temperature is logarithmic (e.g. a doubling from 280 to 560 ppm has the same effect as a doubling from 140 to 280 or 70 to 140 or 35 to 70 ppm), that doesn’t mean that the current doubling results in a small increase.

I hope you realize that you have to add up all small bars between 280 and 560 to get the heating effect for that doubling. That adds up to a 1.2 °C temperature rise for every doubling. However, that’s just the heating effect of CO2. Feedback can greatly enhance that effect. The range given by the IPCC goes up to 6°C (rather unlikely).

“I hope you realize that you have to add up all small bars between 280 and 560 to get the heating effect for that doubling. That adds up to a 1.2 °C temperature rise for every doubling. However, that’s just the heating effect of CO2. Feedback can greatly enhance that effect. The range given by the IPCC goes up to 6°C (rather unlikely).”

I’ve asked you this question many times, and each time you have failed to respond. Let’s see if you have the will to respond this time.

Since you agree with the models that say doubling CO2 to 560 ppm will only result in a warming of 1.2 °C, and that it is water vapor and cloud forcing/feedbacks that cause the rest of the temperature increases (“up to 6°C”), what percentage of the warming since 1850 (0.8°C) has already been attributed to water vapor and cloud forcing/feedbacks vs. the warming attributed to CO2? If water vapor and cloud feedbacks amplify planetary temperatures 3 or 4 times more than CO2 alone, surely they have already contributed to the 1850-present temperature change. Quantitatively, what is that temperature contribution, and how did you obtain that figure?

And if you don’t have a figure, or if you don’t really have any idea to what extent water vapor and cloud contributed to the temperature increase, on what basis do you believe that the forcing/feedback from water vapor and cloud are going to be warming up the planet by up to 6°C beyond the mere 1.2°C from CO2 once we reach 560 ppm ~100 years from now? If they haven’t contributed yet, why haven’t they? And if they have contributed, quantify it. Since this is “settled science” and not a belief, surely you have something to back up your contentions that dangerous consequences will befall us if we don’t reduce our CO2 emissions/switch to wind and solar. So what are your figures?

I’m always asking that.
It would be nice if there was some confirmation message saying where it went (I suspect the spam bin), but just to take it and show no information is just plain rude. Like having a conversation with some who just silently ups and leaves the room.

Keith D. Williams and Alejandro Bodas-Salcedo Met Office
Received: 02 Dec 2016 – Discussion started: 03 Jan 2017
Revised: 26 Apr 2017 – Accepted: 27 Apr 2017 – Published: 06 Jul 2017
Abstract. Most studies evaluating cloud in general circulation models present new diagnostic techniques or observational datasets, or apply a limited set of existing diagnostics to a number of models.
In this study, we use a range of diagnostic techniques and observational datasets to provide a thorough evaluation of cloud, such as might be carried out during a model development process. The methodology is illustrated by analysing two configurations of the Met Office Unified Model – the currently operational configuration at the time of undertaking the study (Global Atmosphere 6, GA6), and the configuration which will underpin the United Kingdom’s Earth System Model for CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6; GA7).

By undertaking a more comprehensive analysis which includes compositing techniques, comparing against a set of quite different observational instruments and evaluating the model across a range of timescales, the risks of drawing the wrong conclusions due to compensating model errors are minimized and a more accurate overall picture of model performance can be drawn.

Overall the two configurations analysed perform well, especially in terms of cloud amount. GA6 has excessive thin cirrus which is removed in GA7. The primary remaining errors in both configurations are the in-cloud albedos which are too high in most Northern Hemisphere cloud types and sub-tropical stratocumulus, whilst the stratocumulus on the cold-air side of Southern Hemisphere cyclones has in-cloud albedos which are too low.